Thinking Yogi

Kerry is the Founder & Director of Bloom Yoga Studio, voted Best Yoga Studio in the Chicago Reader, Chicago Magazine, and Citysearch. As a practicing yogi, writer, and mother of three, Kerry is all about making the principles and philosophies of yoga real and accessible for day-to-day living. You can find Kerry on Google+.

Sure, it was going to be an amazing experience. But how could I possibly step away when life was so busy?

A couple of weeks ago, my family was supposed to join our friends for a camping trip in Indiana to witness the annual migration of the sandhill cranes. We had every reason not to go this year. The computer at the studio died the day before the trip, our garage door was on the fritz, and from the way things looked on weather.com, it seemed just a little bit crazy to think of spending two whole days outside.

Secretly I was hoping that the weight of all these little headaches might be just enough to force us to call off the trip. I wasn't sure if I was capable of stepping back from my stress and busyness.

One thing I've learned from the past 8 years of running Bloom: when you say you're too busy to do something that will be fun or relaxing or will take you out of your everyday routine, you definitely are too busy.

But you need to do it anyway.

So we packed up the car and the kids and headed towards Indiana. As we left the city limits, I noticed my jaw had unclenched. By the time we were driving past cornfields, the ache in my upper back was gone. When we rolled into the campsite and freed the kids from their carseats, they immediately communed with the fallen leaves, rolling around, throwing them, swishing their feet through them and making the most delightful sound. We ran to the playground and romped about on the swings and the see-saw, then I took us all for a whirl on the old-school spinny ride. As I went around and around, looking up at the trees and the sky and enjoying getting just a little too dizzy, I was literally unwinding, unloading the burden of my daily routine.

That afternoon we headed to Jasper-Pulaski State Park, which the cranes use as a stopping point to feed and rest on their journey to Georgia and Florida. While our friends have been going to see the cranes for more than fifteen years, it was only our third year witnessing this amazing wildlife spectacle. By this point, we knew what we should expect to see. Thousands of birds, as many as 10,000, would be flying in over our heads as sunset rolled in. Though we had seen it before, it would still be an unbelievable thing to see this many birds in one place, to witness their fabulous dance and hear their unique call, and to know that it's been this way for millions of years.

Kind of makes my unanswered emails seem insignificant.

As we pulled in to the parking lot and exited the car, we looked up in the sky and didn't see much of anything happening. In past years, from the moment we arrived there were groups of cranes flying in from all directions like planes approaching the runway. But this time, we struggled to spot ten cranes in the sky at any one time.

So there were were: cold, with kids who (predictably) didn't find this particularly interesting, wrestling with our own expectations and our attempts at being patient. One hour in, we had seen a few dozen more, but we couldn't help commenting at how in past years there had just been so many more cranes. The others who gathered, including some birders who had been coming every year for 20+ years, were all talking about it.

We were here. Where were the cranes?

Migration is nature's built-in self-care and survival mechanism. When the weather changes and the cranes' quality of life is affected by it, they instinctively make a long journey for their well-being and the well-being of their family. It's no small thing, and it requires some work and a sacrifice. But migration keeps the cranes alive and well.

"Yeah," she said. "Maybe they tweeted a different landing location this year."

Could the cranes really override their survival programming? What would happen to them if they did?

Though I was perplexed by their relative absence and disappointed not to get to see their amazing spectacle, in a small, weird way it was validating and enticing to think that perhaps the cranes were just too busy this year to make a big deal out of the whole migration thing.

It was a very familiar rationale, at least in human terms. What if despite the knowledge that this was the one thing they needed, the one thing that would keep them healthy and safe, they opted out because they were busy and it was too hard leave their current situation?

As human beings we do not instinctively migrate, and we unfortunately possess immense power to override our body's signals. When my body showed signs of stress earlier that day, instead of recognizing that I needed time away to extract myself from the metaphorical cold front that was rolling in on my life, I nearly decided to just put my head down and power through.

When you unknowingly choose stress over self-care over and over again, you pay the price for it. Stress-related disease is on the rise, and the pace of life seems unlikely to slow down any time soon, so we must learn to override societal messages in order to better tune in to the biological ones. Our bodies and minds crave the break of metaphorical migration, we need a better balance of activity and rest, and yet it can be hard to know how to achieve that short of taking off for a warm-weather vacation.

Another thing I love about yoga: while it has been proven that many forms of movement and exercise provide health benefits, built right into the fabric of yoga's philosophy is this balancing act, the knowledge that 'active' doesn't necessarily mean 'healthy' unless it's balanced with sufficient rest and relaxation.

Deep down we humans know this, but in the flurry of external stimulus from work and media and busy schedules, we often forget. I was beginning to wonder whether the cranes had forgotten, too.

Hour two rolled around and we were getting colder and more discouraged, but I wasn't ready to give up on the cranes. I needed to see them come. As the sun went down a few more flocks started rolling in, and gradually the sky began to appear littered with them. They were coming as they did every year. Despite our computer problems and busy work schedules and minor home repair issues, we could depend on the cranes after all.

They flew in, proof of what is real and what is not. The need to be warm in the winter, the need for food and water, the need for social connections, for the support of a group - these are real. The other stuff, though it occupies our days and provides entertainment, is more of a construct of reality than reality itself.

That weekend we spent two days outside, bundled, huddled by the fire, focused mostly on our basic needs of eating, drinking, sleeping, and staying warm, and it was the medicine I needed. It was a reminder that it was safe and necessary for me to get away and escape the constructs.

The miserable notoriously love company, and in busy patches of my life I've often found myself seeking out my own kind. "Are things super busy for you, too?" I'd ask those around me, hoping. If others were experiencing the same thing, it validated and normalized what I was going through, and made me think that maybe it was just inevitable to grow more and more stressed each year.

But I've decided to stop asking that question of others, and have come up with a new answer should someone ask it of me. "I'm not super busy. I'm making time for rest and taking good care of myself." It's time to say 'no' to busyness. It's time to normalize well-being, to take a lesson from the cranes, and stop overriding the body's signals to rest. Whether that means some yoga to start the day, a walk to clear your head, or simply time away from the computer, now is the time to take better care.

Like the cranes, we can only survive if we learn to listen to the body's signals. We can only thrive if we regularly choose to migrate, to fly away from stress in order to return home to that warm, sunny place called rest and relaxation.

As a young, vigorous practitioner, I prided myself on being able to keep up with the most challenging sequences my teacher could throw at me. When rest was presented as an option, I most often declined and chose the harder pose variation instead. I viewed child's pose with something resembling disdain. To me it was either a throwaway that I waited out before moving on to a more exciting variation, or it was what I resorted to when I couldn't cut it, when I was too weak or too tired to do the 'real pose.'

At the time, I was an undergraduate at what I then considered peak physical condition and I had nothing but time on my hands to practice yoga, dance, and obsess over the healthiest brand of tofu at my local food co-op. Now 16 years later, I'm the mother of two young children, a business owner, a wife, and (as much as I can make the time) an individual with creative aspirations.

My practice has shifted a great deal over the past 16 years, and I'm currently enjoying moderation on my mat. More than any other time in my life, I'm balancing out my active practice with consistent gentle and restorative work. I feel stronger, healthier, and more relaxed than I have in years.

Even so, though most days I'm inspired on the mat, other times I notice myself slipping into boredom or complacency. The poses seem to lose their magic, and I wonder why they're not 'working' any more. If the pose is the same one I practiced the week before and it felt great then, what's different now?

Yoga poses serve as a structure into which to fit your physical, mental, and emotional self. They are shapes you return to in order to observe what's the same and what's different. They are touchstones that reveal how life is wearing on you.

I love how as a yoga practitioner you circle back to the same shapes, the same practices over and over again. Depending on the day or the month or the year, those same poses allow you the opportunity to find something delightfully different. But you have to pay attention.

Take child's pose, for example. At various points over the course of the past 16 years of practice, child's pose has felt entirely different to me. It has gone from being a throwaway pose to a place to deeply experience the breath in my back body. Now as I move into child's pose I'm fascinated by the lengthening sensation in my lower back and the stretch in my shoulders. I savor the nurturing feeling of folding inward into such a simple, humble shape. To look at my experience of child's pose from one year to the next is to look at the changing nature of my mind, body, and breath.

Yoga practice teaches you to be more observant, to be more aware as you explore what is new in your body during your time on the mat. This keen observation is a wonderful skill to practice, but it's not the end goal.

What good would it be if you were totally aware and fully present in child's pose or down dog or tree pose, but then when you came home from class you snapped at your loved ones for having left dirty dishes in the sink?

Once you have practiced observing how these shapes affect your state of being over and over on your mat, once you have trained your mind to pay attention in the 1000th downward facing dog you have done this year so you can notice how this particular pose on this particular day is different rather than going on autopilot, you are better equipped to do it off the mat.

When you say hello to the person behind the grocery checkout counter, maybe you'll really look him in the eyes. When a friend asks you how you're doing, you may genuinely respond and connect with her to find out how she is instead of just going through the motions.

It's been 8 years since we opened our doors at Bloom. Each November since we've opened, I reminisce about how things have changed from those early days and how they have stayed the same.

Though many things have changed, our core mission is still the same and drives every decision I make at Bloom. I'm passionate abut inspiring people to find greater health and happiness on a daily basis, and I'm always exploring new ways we can help our students do just that. Bloom continues to be a welcoming community that makes the rich tradition of yoga accessible to those who are looking for a fun, clear, down-to-earth way to integrate it into their daily life.

When I think about the many child's poses that have been practiced in our studios over the past 8 years, and I share a smile or a hug with one of the many practitioners of said pose and hear about the happiness or sadness in their life in this moment, and I recollect the joys and sorrows of last year and the year before and so on, I know that it's all the same and it's all different.

I had already rolled out my yoga mat this morning, but when I looked at the clock and saw that I only had fifteen minutes before the chaos of my family's morning routine began I thought, "What's the use? There's not enough time to get a full practice in anyway!"

My body was craving yoga though, so I went for it before I could change my mind. I started quickly, rushing from one pose to the next. But it didn't feel right, didn't feel as satisfying as it usually does. I slumped down into child's pose in an I-told-you-so kind of pout. After a minute of child's pose pouting, I pressed up into down dog and lingered for a bit, unsure what to do next. I sighed out a few deep breaths and started wiggling around, and pretty soon I was enjoying the playful feeling of being upside-down. Ah.....the breath, the slowing down, the un-rushing. I was in!

It was the hook to something bigger and this down dog moment reminded me that it didn't matter how many asanas I practiced, what mattered was how and why I did them. I gave up my daydream of a 'full' practice filled with dozens of standing poses and luxurious restorative variations. Instead, I set more humble goals: I wanted to take some time to breathe, move, and reconnect. That's it. With new goals in mind, my practice was different than usual. I did fewer poses, but worked on being more fully present in them as I held and breathed. Revolved lunge was the freedom my spine craved, Lizard was the love my hips needed. As much as I was practicing asana, the real work this morning was enjoying the poses I could do while being okay with not having the time to also go into all my old favorites: warrior II, triangle, side angle, half moon, revolved triangle, and so on. It was a practice of acceptance of that fact I just can't do everything.

It seems like a logical concept and one I should have learned by now, but I've really been struggling with this lately. I want to do it all, and do it well, so when I fall short of that I feel resentful and frustrated. Whether in my work at the studio, my role as a mother and wife, on the mat, or in the writing process, I want to give 100% to everything all the time, which simply isn't possible, not even for Superwoman.

This morning's yoga practice hit home that sacrifices are required, both of my to-do list and my expectations. I acknowledged that for busy people, quality always loses out to quantity. As I practiced, I came up with my new mantra:

I can't do it all, so in this moment I will do one thing well.

On the mat that means being okay with a truncated practice, rather than trying to cram 20 poses into 15 minutes. It's committing 100% to down dog when I'm in down dog instead of longing for the laundry list of other poses that I wish I had the time for. It's embodying santosha, contentment, instead of grasping for the poses that were necessarily left out of the sequence, being present with what's happening breath to breath instead of watching the clock in fear.

Off the mat it means asking for help with projects I've taken on but shouldn't have. It means giving new ideas the time they need to develop instead of trying to accomplish five things simultaneously. It means being more fully present for my kids when I come home from work rather than trying to catch up on a few emails while distractedly tending to them at the same time.

Being here right now is enough. All the thoughts about what I'm not getting done or where I'm falling short are not real, they're just constructs of my mind, and destructive ones at that. So instead I'll head back to my mat tomorrow, for 5 minutes or 50 minutes, and keep working on slowing down and practicing contentment. I'll say it to myself over and over again to drown out the Superwoman Syndrome messaging. I'll say it until I wholeheartedly believe it: It's enough to do one thing well.

When my alarm went off at 6am today, it was all I could do to keep myself from crawling back into bed. But I had made a plan, I had made a promise to myself that despite the temptation of the warmth and comfort of an extra half-hour of sleep, I would step onto the cool hardwood floor, pull my hair back, and move my body. Yoga, walking, dancing, biking - it's less important what than how. I simply knew I had to find a way to take better care of myself.

"There's just never enough time!" I said as I rolled out my mat. And it occurred to me that I've been saying that a lot over the past month.

The kids' school schedule is in full swing, I've added more workdays at Bloom (yay!), and as a result I've felt pulled in new directions (often towards my ball chair and the blue glow of a computer screen). The more projects I tackle and mental gymnastics I put myself through, the more aware I am at the end of the day that I've neglected my body. Much as I don't want to admit it, the increasingly sedentary nature of my work week is taking its toll.

I'm envious as I watch my kids run and play on the playground after school, remembering how good it feels for activity to be a seamless part of your existence. Having been an active person all my life, I'd like to believe that physical activity and exercise can just be a natural extension of my day. But I've recently come to terms with the fact that as an adult, the nature of my day has changed. The work I'm passionate about accomplishing at Bloom and the writing projects I aspire to complete require periods of sustained concentration, most often seated at a desk and in front of a computer.

I've been sneaking activity in whenever I can - when I'm at the park with the kids, I'll jump up to hang from the monkey bars or chase them around the playground - but it's not enough to have a lasting impact.

After a week or so of being achy and feeling sorry for myself, I gave myself a little pep talk:

You can't wait for exercise to happen to you, you have to schedule it in.

I reminded myself that everyone has the same number of hours in the day and some people manage to make time for whatever it is they want to do on a daily basis. Making time means being intentional about how you spend your day.

To successfully schedule time for physical activity, I realized that something else needed to come out of my day. That's where this scheduling business gets tricky - it's hard to decide what to sacrifice. But without a sacrifice, without a true commitment to the new plan, I knew nothing would change. So I started with an assessment of my day as it currently stands.

For me, the early morning hours are an ideal time for physical activity for logistical reasons and otherwise. It gives me quiet time before the kids wake up, time to focus and reconnect before the chaos of the morning routine begins, and it sets the tone for the whole day.

But having been accustomed to working at night once the kids go to bed for the past five years, it required me to make a shift. I had to sacrifice the late nights I used to knock things off my to-do list and prepare for the next day. It's a sacrifice that I'm excited to make because it means getting to bed earlier and feeling more rested, but I it's still taking a lot of discipline to change the habit.

When I want to take a yoga class, I don't just loosely plan to go anymore - I put it in my calendar. It's a way of committing to myself and making sure that I don't let anything else take priority over my plan.

I'll initially come up with all kinds of excuses why I can't spare 90 minutes to go to class. Over the years as I've had too much to do and not enough time to do it, I've become stingy with my time, demanding "productivity" of myself at every moment. But the way I feel when I leave a yoga class is fuel for productivity. The permission to shut off for a while, to go inside and connect on a breath and body level gives me the boost I need to return to my work with clarity and creativity.

In order to get myself to class, I must sacrifice my self-image as a workaholic. I must let go of the fact that more work time does not necessarily mean better results. I must be kinder to myself. Fortunately, following the schedule provides its own rewards. When I make the time to take care of myself, I actually feel like I have more time in my day.

These days it's easy to feel over-scheduled, so the idea of scheduling one more thing initially made my stomach turn. But when I use a different word for it, when I think of it as planning, of setting an intention for what I wish to do and create, scheduling time for physical activity becomes an exercise in mindfulness and self-care. That's the kind of scheduling I can get behind.

In many ways, we're an unlikely match. I'm an extrovert, while he's an expert at finding the quietest room at a big party. He's got an innate sense of direction, whereas I famously got lost trying to navigate my way home from high school. He's practical and efficient and knows how to keep to a schedule, whereas I get excited by big ideas and have more flexible boundaries (read: I'm often late).

Our differences are many, but we share a love of music and the arts, we laugh together freely and often, and we're both fiercely competitive by nature and always up for a game of any kind.

The first few years we were together, I only wanted to see our similarities. Being so in love and so new to each other, I wanted to believe we could be the same person. But as we lived together day after day, our differences became more apparent. And it worried me.

Early in our marriage we had lots of arguments over small silly things like losing in a mixed doubles tennis match against friends. After endless analysis over each point, the two of us lobbing blame back and forth in an effort to decide which one of us was the cause of the blown lead, our unrelenting stubbornness turned something inconsequential into a day of silence.

As I stomped around and pouted in our wordless apartment, I wondered how two people could live in harmony for an extended period of time without compromising their individuality. I was unsure how to fit my big personality and his big personality in the same home without explosive results.

After following the same argumentative pattern over and over again during the first year of our marriage, we eventually decided to try a different approach. When we argued - once the initial anger subsided - we began to dissect the disagreement and each of our perspectives on it. Gradually we came to better understand our different ways of looking at the world, processing information, communicating.

We'd talk through an argument wherever it happened, even if we were with friends. They'd laugh uncomfortably and tell us to lighten up, to brush off what seemed to them a small deal. But we knew better. It wasn't just about losing a tennis match. That time spent talking through our communication breakdowns was a process of refinement, both of ourselves as individuals and as a marital unit.

At the beginning, we were more wedded to our individualism than to each other. We clung to personality quirks as if our self-identities depended on it. But over the past 12 years, I've come to think of marriage as a dulling of our individual sharp edges - in the best possible way - so that our unique personalities don't snag the fabric of our union. Now rather than clinging exclusively to my unique personality traits, I love observing in myself things that are very 'Zach-like' because they reveal the ways that we have allowed ourselves to bleed together, to balance.

Just as in relationships, the balance of opposites is constantly at play on the yoga mat. When I first started practicing yoga 16 years ago, I was very flexible from my years as a dancer. It was exciting to be 'good' at yoga, to be able to touch my feet to my head in a backbend, to be able to twist myself into any crazy position my teacher suggested.

What I didn't realize was that my strengths on the mat were simultaneously masking and amplifying my weaknesses.

When I exploited my flexibility to get into a deep backbend and ended up getting hurt, I felt betrayed. I didn't understand why I shouldn't just go towards my natural inclinations, I was shocked that it could be harmful to do what came happily and easily.

Sharp edges still intact, I continued practicing yoga like this for the first year or so until I happened into a class where a teacher suggested engaging the quads in triangle pose, and I realized I had no idea how to access those muscles! Yoga had come so easily for me when I was pushing towards my natural bias of flexibility, so the challenge of working towards something I couldn't do piqued my interest.

I was enticed to consider that perhaps there was more to the practice than I'd initially thought, even though it was slightly scary because it completely threatened my self-identity as a 'good' yogi. But I dug deeper, tried and tried to lift my quads, and investigated the shadowy areas of my practice.

Over the next few years, I pulled back from my bias of flexibility and emphasized building strength and stability on my mat instead. I worked through shakiness to hold Warrior II longer. In Side Angle I disciplined myself to balance shoulder hyper-mobility by building strength and stability in the shoulder girdle. I realized that by working towards something that didn't initially come naturally or easily, I could become a more balanced and humble yoga practitioner.

My yoga practice better equipped me to apply these principles in my marriage. I'd already experienced the benefits of dulling my edges on the mat, of refusing to let my strengths continually get stronger and my weaknesses linger. So it was that much easier to accept the ache of evolution in my relationship with my husband.

Sometimes, despite an innate desire to have your own views reflected back, despite an intense need for consensus and agreement, it's important to have your worldview challenged. I can always count on Zach for that, and though I tease him for it, it's one of the things I love most about him. Yoga practice also provides continual opportunities to explore that which is difficult, to question your motives and self-identity, and to improve areas of weakness. When approached this way, yoga is less about being able to touch your feet to your head than it is about seeking a union of opposites. And like the union of marriage, yoga's greatest potential is in the dulling of sharp edges in pursuit of harmony and balance.

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Kerry Maiorca

Passionate about yoga, writing, and creativity in general, Kerry is the Founder & Director of Bloom Yoga Studio. Her Thinking Yogi blog explores the intersection of yoga and everyday life, and you can also find her writing on Huffington Post, elephantjournal, MindBodyGreen, yoganonymous, and Yoga Chicago. Kerry and her husband Zach live in Chicago with their three children who love to "help" when she practices yoga in the living room.